Academic Advisory Board

Prof. Joan Blumberg, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA

Sheldon Kotzin,(Retired) Associate Director for Library Operations, National Library of Medicine, USA

Prof. Marko Turina, Professor Emeritus, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Joan Blumberg, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA

Joan Blumberg teaches culture and communications at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Professor Blumberg has vast experience in most types of publishing and has held top executive positions in some of the world’s foremost professional publishing companies and organizations including WB Saunders (now part of Elsevier) and Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins (now Wolters Kluwer Health). She serves and has served on several highly prestigious boards and committees including the American Association of Publishers, Royal Pharmaceutical Society Publishing, American Academy of Neurology Publishing, and the American Medical Publishers Association. Topic research and teaching interests include ePublishing and Marketing, Publishing New Products, Market Behavior Analysis and Projections, Media Effects, Historical Media Effects, Public Speaking, Key Speeches and Political Behavior. Professor Blumberg has a BA from Pennsylvania State University.

Sheldon Kotzin, (Retired) Associate Director for Library Operations, National Library of Medicine

Sheldon provides advice to commercial and society publishers in medicine and science. He has more than 40 years of experience in journal quality assessment, collection development, publication and editorial ethics, scientific misconduct, and customer services. He developed lasting relationships with publishers, editors, and a network of key individuals at academic and hospital libraries. Since his retirement from the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) in 2012, Sheldon has served mainly as a consultant to publishers seeking to have their journals indexed in MEDLINE .

From 2006-2012, Sheldon was NLM’s Associate Director for Library Operations, leading a staff of 280 employees and 200 contractors with responsibility for essential services of the Library, including the acquisition of print and electronic materials; cataloging; indexing; database services for health professionals and patients; medical subject headings; digital and print preservation activities; customer support of PubMed users; historical collections, and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. From 1998-2012,  Sheldon served as Executive Editor of MEDLINE with responsibility for the quality and integrity of indexing of the most widely searched information resource in the world. During that same period he served as Executive Secretary of the NIH Advisory Committee that recommends biomedical and science journals for indexing.

Sheldon represented the Library on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS). He is a Fellow of the Medical Library Association and NFAIS. While a Federal employee he was a member of the Senior Executive Service and was the recipient of the NIH Director’s Award, the NIH Merit Award, and the NLM Director’s Award. Sheldon received a BA from the University of Maryland and an MLS from Indiana University.

Professor Marko Turina, Professor Emeritus, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Professor Marko Turina is Professor Emeritus at the University of Zurich.  In Zurich, he has also served as Director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery and as Chairman of the Department of Surgery in addition to being chief of the cardiac surgery division at Triemli hospital Zurich.  From 1996 to 2000 he was Dean of the Medical Faculty, University of Zurich. Professor Turina was Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (http://ejcts.oxfordjournals.org) from 1993 to 2000 and was President of the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2001/2002. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (http://mmcts.oxfordjournals.org) from its beginning up until 2015 and now assists as an Editorial Consultant. He received MD Honoris Causa from University of Bristol, UK in 2000 and is an honorary member of the American Surgical Association and American Association for Thoracic Surgery.